17 posts tagged “post office”
I spent the whole of last week sorting out the shop. Usually I spend my time doing Post Office stuff. I'm the Post Office guy. Lorraine did shop stuff. I didn't enjoy the shop at all and resented it when it took me away from the PO stuff. But I decided this week to try and change that. So I was in the shop the whole week preparing for the new toy order that arrived on Tuesday. I moved things around, put sale stickers on junk, and worked till about 8 every night.
Friday and Saturday saw a lot of the junk selling and it was very satisfying. Even thought it's selling at a loss, it's satisfying to see it leave the shelves and at least keep the cash flow sort of running.
Lorraine came in yesterday and we managed to get all the new toys out.
The other thing I did was to start my eBay campaign. I really need to get stuff shifting but have always disliked using eBay, mainly because of the hassle and how clunky eBay can be. But it needed to be done and I've started so I just need to keep some momentum going. If anyone's interested, the eBay handle is brodickpo
Here's hoping for a good season and the possiblity of paying my invoices!
I'm putting an ad in a brochure in the next week or so and the tulips outside the Post Office were looking their best so it was great timing for taking my D70s down with me on the Bank Holiday Monday and seeing what kind of shots I could get.
I thought some of my hood and my family would like to see a pick of the shots to see what we've done with the place and how it's looking after three months of hard bloody work.
Hats off to my good lady wife for amazing work in ordering stock and figuring out where to put it all. She's done a really great job and I'm truly blessed to have her on board in this venture. I think we might just make it work!
Enjoy.
Got broadband at the Post Office. WooHoo!
Everything is falling into place. We have to be out of our flat by 1 January so the packing will need to move up a gear after the weekend. It has been difficult because our weekends are filled up with farewell visits to friends and that's really the only time that we can get any proper packing done.
We're staying at a friend's after 1 January and leaving Lux on the 7th. My brother is bringing a 7.5-tonne truck over on the ferry from Rosyth on the east coast of Scotland to Zeebrugge in Belgium, leaving on the 3rd and arriving on the 4th. Then we leave on the 7th, arrive on the 8th and then go straight to Arran to our new rented house. It's going to be hectic, no doubt stressful and difficult but ultimately worth it.
I then have two weeks' training in Glasgow from the 14th and I take over the Post Office on the 30th. The dream is getting close!
Just a quick one as I haven't written about the move to Arran in ages and I know that some of my hoodies were interested.
I start the new job at the Post Office on 30 January. That's the day we take over the business. I've got two weeks of training in Glasgow before that. We're moving from Lux on 7 January. My brother is bringing a 7.5 tonne truck over and we're doing the move ourselves. He's bringing it from Rosyth (Scotland) to Zeebrugge (Belgium) on 3 January, arriving in Zeebrugge on 4 Jan (it's an 18 hour crossing). Then we pack the truck and leave on 7 Jan to arrive in Scotland on 8 Jan and then the ferry to Arran on the evening of 8 Jan. We've got the house on Arran all sorted out pretty much. I got the phone line installed (that was fun, trying to get that done when nobody was in the house - thanks to our soon-to-be-new neighbours it worked out). Next thing is to choose an ISP (I'm going with one of the Entanet resellers as they have no restrictive fair-use policies and plenty of bandwidth and a good reputation for 20 quid a month). Got to order a phone and a modem and some filters.
The au pair is also sorted out and has booked her flights. A nice French girl called Rachel. She's staying until the summer and we've almost chosen her successor (a German speaker).
I've scanned LOADs of paper into my SnapScan and shredded. We're selling/chucking lots of stuff. Some boxes are already packed. We just got an Epson V750 scanner to scan boxes of old photos so we can chuck them. Freya is enrolled for nursery.
Now we only have a few weekends left and they are filling up fast with farewell visits. It's tough as that is the only time we can properly pack anything. Just one of those things I suppose.
Lorraine STILL hasn't handed in her notice and will not be doing so for a few weeks yet. We're worried that it would jeopardise her end-of-year bonus so we're leaving it until the last possible minute (20 Dec, or Dec 20 for our American readers ;)). So this will still be hood only.
Hamish has awoken. I'd better go. Not long to go now and we're getting excited!
I had my interview for the role of Subpostmaster of Brodick Post Office last Friday in Ayr. They recently changed the procedure for Post Office applicants from a traditional interview to a presentation. I was actually the first applicant that the interviewers had had as part of the new format so they were rather curious themselves about how it would work. Thankfully I'm reasonably experienced with presentations so I wasn't too nervous and knew roughly how much prep work was required. I decided not to rely on any slideshow technology and went old-school with a printed handout and a transcript all neatly bound together for each of the two interviewers. We came out feeling confident that we'd done well and then got ready to head off to the Isle of Arran for a five day trip.
Whilst I was sitting in the bank manager's office on Monday afternoon, my mobile rang with a message to call the interviewer for the results. So we headed off down to Brodick shore with the Post Office at our backs and the beautiful landscape of Goatfell and the Firth of Clyde spread out before us. I made the call and got the good news that our application was successful! So all the months and months of hard work and planning have paid off!
The next hurdle to cross will be finding rented accommodation. We found one place that would be perfect, about three miles from the Post Office, 4 bedrooms, two minutes' walk from the beach and off the main road. What more could we want? We had an interview with the landlady on the mainland on Wednesday and are now waiting to hear back from her after she's interviewed the remaining three parties. We're not actually that confident that we'll get it, as she said during the interview that she personally knows two of the three other interested parties, but I guess you never know. If it doesn't work out, it will be quite difficult finding something else, given that we're in Luxembourg and the fact that the rental market on Arran is geared towards short-term summer lets.
Here's the house we're after:
So, now that the application is done, it's time to start clearing out the clutter and getting rid of stuff on eBay.
We're Scotland bound tomorrow for the interview on Friday in Ayr at 11.30 a.m. The presentation is done - I'm not going to bother with a slideshow and have instead elected to go with the more archaic method of using a handout. Less to go wrong and less to worry about.
We're heading to Arran the day after the interview for a few days of holiday. I'm glad that the interview is at the beginning of our trip rather than the end so we can relax a bit. Freya's looking forward to playing on the beach, paddling in the sea, making sandcastles and playing with her cousins.
Wish us luck!
We just got the date through for the interview - Friday 17 August! The guy that's been dealing with us is really friendly and accommodating. When we sent our business plan, we put in a letter to request either August 16 or 17 as we will be in Scotland then anyway. It's a narrow window to be sure, but they managed to fit us in! And not only is it on the date that we wanted, it's also in AYR! The original timeline said that it would be in Glasgow and that would have been much less convenient. Ayr is much closer to where we will be.
So, I'll be spending the next few days putting together a presentation -- I've to talk for 20–45 minutes about how I will drive the business forward and maintain excellent customer service. Guess it's time to dig out the buzz-phrase generator!
I'm not sure whether to take my MacBook with me and do the presentation in Keynote, or do it in Powerpoint on the PC and use the laptop provided at the interview. I'm familiar with neither Keynote nor Powerpoint. And if I choose to do it in Keynote, should I upgrade to iLife 08 first? I suppose if I'm gonna learn it, I might as well learn the latest version!
So, wish us luck everyone!
It's been a while since I blogged about our progress with the Post Office purchase. The thing is, it's such a darned long process.
Our offer was accepted back in mid-June (no thanks to our incompetent solicitor) and only then could I begin the process of applying for the position through the Post Office. That involved doing another business plan, which thought would be easy since we'd already submitted one to the bank. But the pro-forma had changed and was, without a doubt, one of the worst Word docs I've ever had to deal with. It was locked down tight and information could be added only in the fields provided. Very frustrating. In the one we sent to the bank (which was based on the PO one) I had replaced all the tables with Excel objects, making for a very nice form indeed, thank you very much.
Anyway, long story short, I got the form finished last night and went through the online application process this morning. There were many more questions to go through online, including things like Outline your employment history over the last five years. Strange, since part of or the application form included a CV (which, thankfully, I was permitted to ignore and replace with my own PROPER CV).
So, the application form is submitted. All that remains is to post the photocopied docs today and then await the response. We're hoping to be able to arrange the interview for August when we're visiting - the interview is in Glasgow.
Fingers crossed!
I met a chartered accountant at a guitar thing I was and he kindly agreed to look over the figures for me. This he did and was surprised to discover that all we had were extracts of the accounts. So we requested the full accounts, including for the last financial year which we did not previously have. We just heard from our bank manager that he has received those accounts and has forwarded them on to us and a copy to my accountant friend. Unfortunately my accountant friend (to whom I shall henceforth refer to as Charles, since that is his name) is leaving for Spain tomorrow and there's no way he'll get the docs before he leaves.
The bank manager also got a copy of the lease which he has forwarded on to our solicitor. The solicitor has to confirm that the lease is being transferred into your name, that there is sufficient time to repay your 10-year obligation and that there are no restrictive or onerous clauses. The solicitor also to confirm the purchase price of £x.
We did get an encouraging e-mail from the bank manager today, in which he said that the seller seems keen to sell to us. Encouraging news indeed.
We were asked by the bank to put together an income and expenditure forecast based on what we will be earning and spending once we get to Arran. This put me into full procrastination mode as it seemed such an impossible task, but thankfully Lorraine is a bit more together than I and she put together the document very well. I did the whole business plan and current income and expenditure form, but then ran out of momentum. It seems we make a good team when all is said and done!
So, what's up now? The bank manager has authorised a commercial survey, now that he has the full set of accounts for the last three years, and we should hopefully get an estimated valuation of the business. Hopefully Charles will get a chance to look over them soon, and we'll get a second valuation that way.
Charles also mentioned that it would be worthwhile forming a limited company rather than buying the business as a sole trader, which was what I was initially planning to do. That kicked off a weekend of research and much head-scratching. Seemingly it's not quite so clear cut as that, but there do seem to be many advantages to proceeding this way. I got in touch with someone from the National Federation of Sub Postmasters to find out whether the PO is okay with appointing the subpostmaster position to an individual who was an employee of a limited company and this seems to be okay. So more head-scratching to come about that.
We'll wait until we get the full accounts before we submit our income and expenditure forecast as the most recent year's figures are apparently better than we had hoped and it could put us in a stronger position regarding the bank loan application. It's doubtful that they will arrive before the weekend, which is a shame, so it will be the middle or end of next week before we get the next task completed.
So, all in all, we are making progress. It's a long and difficult process and sometimes the whole thing just starts to seem impossible and a bad idea, but it's my nature to think that way, particularly when I'm feeling overwhelmed and am facing seemingly impossible tasks. If I were on my own, I'd have stumbled and fallen long ago. Thankfully, the teamwork seems to be pulling us along. We really do want this to happen, so we've just got to keep plodding along and dealing with each piece of the puzzle in rightful order.
